


Lose Myself

by xantissa



Category: Loveless
Genre: M/M, Past Abuse, Underage Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 21:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xantissa/pseuds/xantissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ritsuka POV. The boy watches Soubi and wonders about the man’s relationship with pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lose Myself

The room was strangely quiet, as if the rain pouring outside cushioned them in the steady noise. Ritsuka sat curled up on his chair, staring at the man stretched on his stomach on his bed.

Soubi, again.

He couldn’t really remember how it happened, that the older man started spending his nights in the teenager’s room. He remembered it started with those late night visits. The way Soubi would drop by, climb onto his balcony and come through the balcony door. It didn’t matter that Ritsuka closed them. Barricaded them. Soubi would simply come in. One of his spells probably. 

Strong, silent, with his eyes always focused on Ritsuka. Pale in the weak moonlight and very, unbearably, messed up. Some days Ritsuka could swear he could taste how badly Soubi wanted to belong. How badly he wanted Ritsuka to accept their roles, to accept that Soubi was the servant to Ritsuka’s master. 

He shivered. A large part of him hated it. He despised people who followed orders, people without their own will. He always thought it was a show of weakness. Pitiful. Despicable. 

But Soubi changed that opinion. He could kneel in front of Ritsuka, could say the infuriating “whatever Ritsuka wants” but he was dangerous. Deadly. Soubi was a man that could whisper words of murder and love in the same breath. An adult that offered to kill Ritsuka’s mother for him. Only the boy’s firm order actually kept Soubi from following through with his offer.

He acted like a slave, willing to throw his life away on command. But he wasn’t weak. As the time passed Ritsuka realized something. The fact that Soubi so often broke his promises, broke the orders Ritsuka rarely gave, was not the effect of him being a lying bastard. Well, not completely anyway. It took some time, but Ritsuka realized that Soubi actually wanted, needed the Fighter – Sacrifice bond between them. For himself. Not because Semei ordered him to be by Ritsuka’s side. But because he wanted it, and because he was trained to be a tool of war; Soubi did everything in his power to force Ritsuka to accept that bond.

He told Ritsuka he loved him, words simultaneously without meaning and meaning too much. He touched the boy, petted him, hugged him and took care of his wounds. Protected him. Gave him everything his own mother never did. But it wasn’t free. Nothing with Soubi ever was. For every comforting touch, every thing he did to genuinely help Ritsuka feel better, he did something that was meant to get Ritsuka used to the idea that Soubi was hell bent on taking Ritsuka’s ears eventually. The older man, the adult now sleeping in his bed, wanted to take Ritsuka’s childhood. Wanted to create an even stronger bond between them by making them lovers. Not yet though. Now he only kissed the boy, sometimes touched in a way that wasn’t completely innocent but also not entirely disturbing either. The boy sighed, his tail shifting to curl over his thighs. 

He remembered the time when he felt uneasy with that narrow gaze focused on him. An adult, a university student, that knew how to kill. That killed. A Fighter that belonged to his brother... and now belonged to him. 

Before he noticed it, the blond man started spending hours in his bedroom. Sometimes talking, sometimes reading, his focus however always on the boy. Those eyes following him, staring at him, filled with things he didn’t want to know. 

Ritsuka shifted and the chair squeaked in protest. Soubi didn’t move but somehow the boy knew the man wasn’t sleeping. 

The boy looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. It would be his birthday tomorrow. Fourteen years old. Strange. He felt older. Much, much older. He wondered if anyone would know. His brother was dead. His mother... well, he sure as hell wouldn’t want to see her. After the last birthday and the bandages he had to wear for weeks afterwards, he just wasn’t willing to repeat that fiasco.

Pain.

He stood up.

It was always about pain for Soubi. Pain that proved he was alive. Punishment for disobeying an order. Pain in battle, when enemy spells cut his body, tore his muscles and shattered his bones.

Pain, but pain without sound.

It has been almost two years since Soubi came to him. And in all that time Ritsuka has never heard him cry out in pain. He suffered. Ritsuka saw that, felt the blood dripping down onto his face from Soubi’s torn throat. And yet there was not a sound, not even a quiver in his voice.

For every time Soubi said he was used to pain, Ritsuka thought that it was a lie. How much greater the agony must have been to keep it all inside?

He sat down on the edge of the bed, his body small and fragile next to the tall, strong, adult male. His knees bony and legs too thin. And yet Soubi insisted that he was the master in this relationship. A word, an order, and Soubi would obey.

But not always. He never listened when Ritsuka told him to leave him alone. He was odd like that. Would agree to sacrifice his life but would not let Ritsuka go alone on a school trip. 

With a resigned sigh Ritsuka pulled the covers down. He gave up on trying to throw the man out of his room a few weeks ago. It was useless. Soubi always pretended to be asleep and not hear the desperate orders to get the hell out.

So, eventually the boy gave up. And if he slept better knowing that he wasn’t totally alone, knowing that there was someone between himself and his mother, he wouldn’t admit it out loud. Dressed in the black pajama pants and habitual black, long sleeved shirt he still felt vulnerable. Soubi was in similarly dressed. Light blue sweatpants and white tee-shirt. Funny, but Ritsuka couldn’t remember when exactly Soubi started leaving a change of clothes at his place. 

Ritsuka stared at the ash blond hair, soft and loose fell on the slim back and over the pale face. Soubi rarely expressed any emotion. His face almost always calm and his eyes narrow, giving him a slightly dangerous look. They looked odd together. An angry teenager and a calm, beautiful, refined adult.

One of Soubi’s hands was lying loosely curled on the soft white pillow. His fingers were long, almost delicate. A painter’s fingers. Tiny calluses from holding the brush for hours at a time and his skin always smelling faintly of paint. The boy wondered when it exactly happened that he learned just how Soubi’s skin smelled?

But it always came back to the hair. Blond, straight, long always falling in soft strands around the pale face. The paleness, the way Soubi could look almost fragile was always in contrast with the way his blue eyes were always sharp, mysterious and ruthless in battle. 

There was a mystery about Soubi. Strength, madness and understanding like Ritsuka had never found before. After that one, frightening offer to kill Ritsuka’s mother, Soubi never asked about the bruises, about the constant bandages and the myriad of little wounds, constantly appearing on the boy’s body. And Ritsuka was grateful for it. Pathetically grateful, because he didn’t think he would ever be able to admit it out loud.

He reached to turn off the small bedside lamp and froze. The older man’s tee-shirt rode up exposing a slip of pale back. Just few inches of skin, nothing that should guarantee a reaction like his.

Nothing except the pale, silvery lines criss-crossing that tiny strip of flesh. 

Scars.

Old scars.

Ritsuka might be young, might be just a fourteen year old boy, but he knew scars. Knew how they looked a week old, a month old. What they looked after a year, or five. That was probably the only thing his mother managed to teach him.

Before he realized what he was doing, his fingers lightly grazed the silvery patterns.

Soubi betrayed then that he was not sleeping as he was pretending, the rapid hiss of indrawn breath a testament enough of his awarnes.

Ritsuka jerked his fingers away, afraid of hurting the older man. But it was stupid. Scars didn’t hurt. He should know it better than most. 

Everything was still and silent, only the steady sound of rain against his windows breaking the tense silence. The familiar scent and warmth of the larger body beside him creating a space of their own, a world where pain was as constant as the very air they breathed. 

And the thought hit him then. Before it was always just a vague impression and idea he just couldn’t, wouldn’t, entertain for longer than it took to forget it. 

Seimei.

His older brother. The only one who talked to Ritsuka with kindness and understanding. Soubi’s previous master.

Memories of other people came back.

//Your brother treated Soubi like a dog.//

//Soubi was always in pieces, thanks to Seimei. Not to be rude to you, but I breathed a sigh of relief when he died. I hoped it would set Soubi free.//

//You can punish me.// No fear in those words. Just an odd form of acceptance. //Use me.//

No! His mind screamed. No. His brother wouldn’t do something like this. Would not. Could not...

“Show me.” His voice was a surprise to his own ears. Low and jagged, like a broken glass.

The blond man stilled, his body tense for a brief second before he relaxed again.

“Is this an order?” Came the eternally level, low voice. Ritsuka hated how emotionless it sounded right then. But he had to know. Had to...

“Yes.” Two years has passed and still it felt against his nature, against his very being, to give orders.

Without a sound, with grace that Ritsuka has only ever saw in Soubi, the man pushed himself into a sitting position, his loose hair falling in a soft cascade as he stretched to pull the soft fabric from his body. The muscles shifted in his back, tensing and relaxing as he pulled the thin cotton of his body. The scars shimmered, shifted like a live entity. Then he laid down. Silent, his face turned away from Ritsuka. But his eyes were open, strangely defenseless without the ever present glasses. Soubi was motionless once again, lying on his stomach. One of his hands lay alongside his body, the other resting almost peacefully on the pillow again. Fingers loose and relaxed, curled slightly and an odd, almost pleased line of his lips. Ritsuka could never understand the strange pleasure that Soubi seemed to get from being given an order. Ritsuka didn’t understand it but he saw it. And he knew, that the more difficult, the more painful the order, the more it pleased Soubi to obey it. He didn’t understand but he didn’t dare ask.

The golden light from the lamp illuminated a wide expanse of pale, perfectly developed back.

And a wide web of silvery scars stared at him from the pale expanse of beautifully sculpted back. 

Some old, some obviously newer, made over the old ones. The color of skin slightly different. Some were very deep, some left only a shadow of a line.

Ritsuka touched them gently, tracing each one with his fingertips. A butterfly touch over senseless flesh that could not feel any more.

“Did any of it, any of…” His voice broke and his tongue felt dry and swollen in his mouth. “Were any of those made by my brother?” His small palm was spread between the jutting shoulder blades, feeling the steady expansion of Soubi’s ribs with each carefully measured breath.

The older man didn’t answer, his only visible eye open and staring resolutely at the empty spot somewhere between the bed and the wall.

Ritsuka shuddered. Just once. It was more of an answer that he would ever want.

Hot, wet tears fell freely from his eyes, rolling down his cheeks and splattering on the pale, marred back.

“Oh God. Oh God.” He was starting to hyperventilate, his body wrecked by powerful sobs. 

Soubi tried to move, reacting to Ritsuka’s obvious distress but the boy pushed him back, forcing him to stay lying on his stomach. And unspoken order but powerful enough to make Soubi obey even when the older man’s muscles tensed, rearing to do something, anything to comfort the boy.

“Most of them are old. From my training days.” 

If Soubi was trying to cheer Ritsuka up it sadly didn’t work. So much pain.

“Why?” He whispered brokenly, bending down and pressing his forehead to the warm, pale back. He lay pressed closely to Soubi and sobbed uncontrollably. “Why so much pain? Why?”

Soubi sighed, probably realizing once again, that Ritsuka was simply too young to understand some things.

“Because it was my destiny. A Fighter must accept the pain, suffer it and fight to protect his Sacrifice. Because it was my fate to submit to my Sacrifice.” Again his voice held no inflection, no emotion at all.

Another memory…

//Soubi was famous. The most powerful Fighter that ever existed. An ideal fighter has no sense of self.//

Ritsuka shook his head.

“No!” He snaked his arm around the older man, his palm coming to rest on over Soubi’s heart. “It’s... wrong. What they did to you... what my brother did to you... it’s wrong.” He whispered brokenly, tears still pouring from his eyes and trickling down Soubi’s back. 

“You fought for him. You suffered pain for him, and he only caused you more.”

“I wanted it.” The words were so soft, almost gentle. Very unlike Soubi.

The boy snorted.

“No. You wanted a proof of your bond. And Seimei never bothered to notice that you equal pain with love.”

Soubi jerked, a startled sound escaping his throat and the heart under Ritsuka’s palm beat faster.

“I will never hurt you.” Ritsuka whispered brokenly. “I’m your Sacrifice.” Another jerk. In his state, the boy didn’t realize that he never actually said those words seriously before. Never actually accepted their bond, however sick or twisted it was. He pressed his palm harder into the smooth muscle over the rapidly beating heart. “I am you Sacrifice and when you feel pain, I feel it too.”

Soubi shifted, one of his hands coming to rest over the boy’s small one.

“I love you, Ritsuka.” He said gently, his voice lower, different than he usually said.

The boy only cried harder. He hated so much to hear those words. They meant only pain, cut his heart and soul into pieces. How could Soubi say those words, when he didn’t even know what they meant?

“You lie, Soubi. You always lie to me.” The boy whispered brokenly, tears still running down his cheeks. “You are a spell caster. You control words. For you, these words are just a spell to establish a bond between us. They are not real.”

Soubi closed his eyes. It was an old argument between them.

“They are real to me. I love you, Ritsuka.”

The boy closed his eyes, burying his face in the damp, warm skin of the older man’s back, feeling the pale, long fingers cover his hand. His tail swished sluggishly to curl around Soubi’s thighs. 

“Someone once told me that you cannot love anybody else until you love yourself first. You don’t even know yourself, not to mentioning love yourself. Therefore, you can’t love me.”

There was a long pause, only the gentle sound of both of them breathing. Ritsuka’s tears stopped and he was feeling tired, wrung out emotionally and physically, on the verge of sleep.

“Ritsuka...” There was hesitation in Soubi’s voice. Something vulnerable and almost shy. It caught the boy‘s attention immediately, rousing him from his doze. He only ever heard Soubi like that once. When he was hurt so badly he couldn’t even move and still refused to call for Ritsuka to help. When the only words he managed was that he didn’t want Ritsuka to see him like that. Bloodied and broken beyond recognition.

“Maybe...” He whispered, his voice catching and breaking on the last syllable “It’s only when I lose myself in someone else that I find myself.”

 

The end


End file.
